by fjallstrom
Wed Jan 16th, 2019 at 02:24:40 PM EST
In September, Sweden went to the polls, and the results were far from clear, leading to a drawn out government formation.
To recap, the left bloc got 144 seats and declared themselves winners. But so did the right bloc with 143, on account of the left bloc losing more. And of course the far right Sweden Democrats with 62 seats also declared themselves winners.
PM Löfven was voted down by the right and far right, but the cabinet has stayed in place as a care taker government.
Frontpaged - Frank Schnittger
For practical purposes the parliament can be divided in far right (Sweden Democrats, 62 seats), conservative parties (The Moderates, 70 seats, and the Christian Democrats 22 seats), the liberal parties (the Liberals, 20 seats, and the Centre, 31 seats) the cabinet parties (the Greens, 16 seats, and the Social Democrats, 100 seats) and finally the left (Left party, 28 seats).
The standard cabinet formations has been either consevatives plus liberals, also known as "The Alliance" or the Social Democrats with support from Greens and Left, aka "The Red-Greens".
After several rounds of talks, in November parliament first voted down the opposition leader Kristofferson from the Moderates with far right and conservatives for and red-greens against and the liberal parties abstaining. Then it voted down Löfven again after he had failed to gain the support of the liberal parties. Red-greens for and the far right, conservatives and liberals against.
Then it came to the budget. The largest budget is passed, it does not need a majoirty of the votes. As care taker government, the cabinet motioned for a care taker budget with no major reforms and mostly indexed increases. However the conservative parties budget won with far right support (and liberal parties abstaining). Still the government could not resign, as they already were a care taker government.
The last weeks has seen an improvement in the pace of negotiations. A negotiated settlment by the liberal parties and the cabinet has passed in all four parties, were the cabinet parties continue in government and the liberal parties gives support in confidence and budget. Of course, this means policy give aways to the liberal parties, at the same time as this years budget is the conservative one.
Oh yeah, the liberal party leaders were quick to point out that they had contained the malign influence of the Left party. So the Left party threatened to vote down Löfven, only to back of today with the promise to vote him down in the future if he passes some of the reforms he has agreed to with the liberal parties. But for now, it looks like Löfven will be elected PM again on Friday.
